THE Lowly Peon

coffeeshops 
27 February 2008, 2:41pm

one word that tends to get lost in translation is "coffeeshop". sure, it's simple, you may think. it's a place where you get coffee. in america, the meaning of coffeeshop is fairly literal. it is a place where you can go get coffee, often a place with a comfortable setting, where people go to work, hang out, chat, or relax. i love american coffeeshops.

in the netherlands, the above meaning is described with the word "cafe". quite different is the meaning of "coffeeshop", which means a place where you can go buy drugs. so when i went to the netherlands to see hobbesaroo and i said i wanted to go to a coffeeshop, he laughed pretty hard before he explained to me the difference.

now i'm in saigon, a place where the locals pride themselves on having the best coffee in the world (and it is quite good, though more like melted coffee ice cream. you'd love it, klcomp). i've been drinking the coffee here quite regularly. it's a lot like the iced coffee in thailand, where there's a bit of really fresh, delicious coffee, mixed with condensed milk, sugar, ice, and sweetened sugar. i've also been looking forward to be able to have some time in the american version of a "coffeeshop".

sidenote: the girls here are freaking gorgeous.

work lately has been stressful, and the wonderful folk here at bray vietnam are aware of that. i fell in love the other day with a waitress at the only restaurant within ten miles of the factory. we've been making eye love for the last few days. today i even spoke the only words to her that i know in vietnamese ("hello", "you are very beautiful", "thanks", "goodbye". i left out "cheers" and "bottoms up"). we're in love. anyway, i mentioned to kyle, my new buddy, that she's my new girlfriend. since then, we've been talking about a lot of the pretty girls we see. it's nice, because no one here speaks a lick of english.

so today, kyle decided to show me a good time, help me really take my mind off of work. we went out for dinner (me, kyle, the boss, and the driver. kyle told me that "many many" beautiful girls go to the coffeeshops in saigon to hang out and chat. so that's where he was gonna take me.

lost in translation.

we rode his motorbike for a while (no idea where), and made a U-turn and pulled over a bit. here, motorbikes often ride on the sidewalk, even though they're huge and dangerous. there was an empty looking shop, with only a few chairs, all facing out, and no lights on. i figured it was closed. but we drove into it. then i noticed that there were three or four girls outside. (i hadn't noticed before because half the population spends their days sitting outside, completely motionless.)

i ordered a heineken, my traveling usual. no beer. only 7-UP. okay, i'll have a 7-UP. kyle told me that he invited one of the girls sitting outside to come have a chat. remember that my vietnamese is limited to about 5 words/phrases. i started with the two i knew best: "hello, you are very beautiful." she smiled, laughed a bit, and sat down, bending over as far as she could. started holding my face. and stroking my "yellow" hair. and rubbing my arm because i don't have black hair on my arms (which apparently doubles as an insult to vietnamese guys, akin, i imagine, to being called "a cigarette*").

huh. that's my thigh.

uh oh. now i'm starting to get it. this is what "coffeeshop" means in saigon.

i spent the next hour battling painful awkwardness and trying to read cultural differences. kyle said that she wanted to go "inside" and maybe kiss and hug, but no [fill in with word i didn't understand, but didn't need to]. that's illegal.

hmm. i think not.

i felt awful for misleading kyle and somehow making him think i was interested in this, and even worse because this poor girl lost a lot of business wasting her time on me, and apparently had a family to support back in the country. kyle translated for me a bit while she alternated between trying to tickle me and pretending to cry because i wouldn't "go inside." she seemed like such a good girl. it broke my heart a little. so i gave her a tip about the size of what a normal... uh... fee would be, and took off as soon as i could.

so the moral of this story, the moral of this song, is simply that one should never be where one does not belong. so if you want to go to a coffeeshop, be careful what you're told. and don't go mistaking paradise, for that home across the road.